The NBA’s (totally awesome) second season is finally upon us. Now that the 16 postseason teams are officially set, we have a chance to further examine the craziness that sure to lie ahead. In our playoff preview series, we will take a look at some of the more intriguing questions surrounding these first round matchups.

San Antonio Spurs (2) vs Memphis Grizzlies (7)

1. What are the best ways for this decimated Memphis team to try to put up points against this elite Spurs' defense?

Finding ways to consistently crack NBA defenses usually comes down to an efficient marriage between a player and an action -- a Carmelo Anthony iso, Chris Paul in the pick-and-roll, a LeBron James post up, Steph Curry doing, well, anything. For the Grizzlies, injuries have robbed them of any truly menacing ways to attack their opponents. Given the tools at his disposal going into this series, Memphis head coach Dave Joerger only has two decent options -- playing through Zach Randolph in the post or letting Lance Stephenson go to work out of pick-and-rolls.

When it comes to the former, the Grizzlies would be in good shape...if this was 2011. Unfortunately for them, however, Randolph’s efficiency in that action has fallen off from his peak years. At this point in his career, those jab-step, face-up jumpers aren’t enough to for Randolph to give Memphis a truly threatening way to break down opposing defenses.

Though he’s been forced into a high volume of attempts (which makes being efficient harder), Randolph has only posted a mark of .845 points per possession on his post ups, per Synergy data. To put that in perspective, lands him 17th out of the 23 NBA players with a minimum of 200 post up attempts, as classified by that same Synergy database. To make matters worse for the Grizzlies, Synergy ranks the Spurs as the 6th best team when it comes to defending post ups.

Things are a bit more promising when you look at Stephenson’s production out of pick-and-rolls. Though he’s logged just 85 such possessions (again, as categorized by Synergy), Stephenson has posted a more than respectable .976 points per possession in that action -- by far the best mark on the team even if you include the injured Mike Conley. With a herky-jerky, downhill approach, Stephenson can actually be quite a handful for opposing bigs when he’s coming off a pick high on the floor:

The downside of using Stephenson in a high volume of pick-and-rolls, however, are two-fold. First off, Stephenson is one of the few players who actually are less efficient making plays for teammates out of pick-and-rolls than they are scoring for themselves -- which is pretty hard to do. And speaking of difficult, the Spurs being, well the Spurs, will make life difficult by flooding help when Stephenson has the ball and daring him to fling passes out to his teammates instead of keeping it for himself. It’s also a good bet to expect Gregg Popovich to instruct anyone guarding Stephenson in pick-and-rolls to give him the full LeBron James treatment -- duck way under the pick and cut off any path to the paint, forcing the Memphis wing to shoot mid-range jumper after mid-range jumper in according to consistently score in pick-and-rolls.

Looking at the data, it’s clearly going to be a tall task for Memphis to score enough against San Antonio’s vaunted defense in order to keep pace in this series. But if Randolph turns back the clock or Stephenson goes full-on Steph Curry, they might make things interesting.

2. Speaking of Popovich, how will the Spurs' head coach treat this series?

There just doesn’t seem to be any way short of divine intervention (if you believe in that sort of thing) that Memphis will push San Antonio past five games -- no matter who Popovich trots out there. So it will be interesting to see how the Spurs' head coach handles his rotation throughout the series. On one hand, there’s merit to him sticking to his best lineups, polishing off the Spurs and getting his veteran team extra rest before what is sure to be a pair of fistfights in later rounds.

On the other hand, the Pop method of throwing guys like Kevin Martin, Boban Marjanovic, Andre Miller, etc. randomly into games while they are still in doubt, may sometimes be less than optimal, but it does keep those players sharp in case they do need to be called upon in later rounds. Given the fact that Memphis has been reduced to a rotation full of fringe NBA players and aging vets, San Antonio could still throw out random lineups and sweep this series rather easily. But there is also a chance that too much tinkering from Pop let’s a game, or maybe with a lot of luck, two, slip away and extend the series.

3. Will a big playoff performance in this series by Lance Stephenson change his perception around the league?

After flaming out with Charlotte and failing to find a consistent role despite decent production with the Clippers, Stephenson’s rep has taken quite the hit. But with this banged up Grizzlies squad, the frustrating guard has seemed to find the swagger that made him a relatively coveted free agent two summers ago. But with the injuries in Memphis taking the team further out of the spotlight than normal, it’s doubtful many people have noticed the effect Stephenson has had.

Going up against the Spurs, Stephenson will have a platform to turn a few heads among both fans and executives should he a big series -- even if it’s in just four games. Memphis has a team option for Stephenson next season, something they are almost certainly going to pick up, but a strong showing here could help Stephenson build some free agency momentum going into next season.